Hitherto, spiro-orthocarbonate has been obtained by reacting glycol with di-n-butyl tin oxide and carbon disulfide as described, for example, in Journal of Organic Chemistry, Vol. 35, p. 2347 (1970) and Polymer Preprints, American Chemical Society, Division of Polymer Chemistry, Vol. 14, p. 1169 (1973). An example thereof is illustrated by formula (1) ##STR1## wherein Bu represents an n-butyl group.
However, this process has various problems, because an organic tin compound, which is very expensive, and carbon disulfide, which is difficult to handle because of its highly hazardous, are used as raw materials and the reaction step is complicated and separation of the desired product is very difficult.
Further, spiro-orthocarbonate can be produced by a reaction of glycol with tetraalkyl orthocarbonate as illustrated in formula (2) ##STR2## as described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 10582/83 (the term "OPI" as used herein means "published unexamined Japanese patent application"). This process is an excellent process for production, because substances which are easily handled are used as the raw materials, separation of the spiro-orthocarbonate is simply carried out, and the yield thereof is excellent. However, there is a problem in that the tetraalkyl orthocarbonate raw material is not readily available.
On the other hand, spiro-orthocarbonate can be also produced by reaction of an epoxide and cyclic carbonate as shown in formula (3) ##STR3## as described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 155385/84. In this process, spiro-orthocarbonate can be produced by one step in a high yield from raw materials which are easily handled. However, since the industrially available cyclic carbonates include only ethylenecarbonate and propylenecarbonate and the other raw material is an epoxide, this process is suitable only for the production of 1,4,6,9-tetraoxaspiro[4.4]nonane derivatives. Therefore, this process has the fault, for example, that 1,5,7,11-tetraoxspiro[5.5]undecane derivatives as shown in formula (4), etc. are difficult to produce, and only limited kinds of spiro-orthocarbonate can be produced. ##STR4## Further, it has been reported that 1,4,6,9-tetraoxaspiro[4.4]nonane derivatives are unsuitable as polymerizable monomers, because they cause decomposition in the case of carrying out, for example, ring-opening polymerization.